Lymphoma patients who received radiation at younger ages were the most likely to eventually develop malignant mesothelioma.

Scientists in California and New York have released a new report that points to an elevated risk for deadly malignant mesothelioma among people who have had radiotherapy for lymphoma. Surviving Mesothelioma has the full story. Click here to read it now.

Researchers at Stanford Cancer Center and scientific consulting firm Exponent, Inc., analyzed the extensive US Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to find people who had received radiation for either Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma between 1973 and 2014.

“After multivariate adjustment, radiotherapy was associated with increased mesothelioma risk, especially in lymphoma patients diagnosed before 1995 and after a latency of at least 10 years, and apparently with younger age at diagnosis,” writes lead author Ellen Chang with Exponent.

According to the new report in Cancer Causes and Control, 28 of the lymphoma patients who had undergone radiotherapy eventually developed mesothelioma.

“Although mesothelioma is typically associated with exposure to asbestos, this study is a reminder that there are other risk factors to be aware of and a history of radiotherapy is one of them,” says Alex Strauss, Managing Editor for Surviving Mesothelioma.

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